Jeff and Christi Boyd

Dear Friends and Family,

Greetings in the name of Christ! In about four months, the Boyds will once again head to the U.S. for our 2012 Mission Interpretation Assignment, followed by a short study leave in 2013. We welcome invitations to churches, presbyteries, church camps, mission conferences, or any other venue where we can suitably share about PC(USA) missions, the ministries of our partners in Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Equatorial Guinea, and our involvement in each. We anticipate returning to the mission field later in 2013. For the first time that will be without children as Naomi, our youngest and a high school senior, will start college in the fall. Her siblings, Matthias and Salome, are already studying.

Our family is grateful for the various ways we have been supported over the past twenty-two years by presbyteries, churches, and individuals. This assistance through Presbyterian World Mission has allowed our family to stay in the mission field. It continues to be a blessing and privilege to serve our partners in Africa and the membership of the PC(USA). Our preliminary plans indicate block periods of our availability to itinerate. Dates are estimates, however, and will be subject to change as we hear back from churches.

Past experiences have shown that churches can help us tremendously in setting up an itineration with speaking arrangements that demonstrates good stewardship of time and resources, first by letting us know as soon as possible of your interest and secondly by working in synergy with other churches in your area or presbytery. In the latter case we can ask the Mission Connections Office to help you coordinate an itineration in your larger area. That way invitations coming from the same part of the country can be organized through one hub and the earlier such regional interest becomes clear, the better the chance for a visit. You can list desired dates in order of preference, and counting on your trust and understanding, we will try and put a schedule together that seems most feasible. If none of these times works for you, we could make an exception and consider dates in the first half of 2013, but please bear in mind that that period has been set aside for study and other capacity building activities.

Whenever possible, we'd like to make our visits as a couple. Actually, in July we’ll be driving across country with our three kids, who will be with us during part of their summer holidays. We realize that when driving is not a feasible option the cost of flights may require that only one of us comes for a visit. In that case, please indicate if you have a preference to hear from Christi or from Jeff. Christi will be able to share about the Joining Hands Initiative and the efforts by RELUFA (network for the fight against hunger) to confront issues of justice and poverty in Cameroon. Jeff can lift up a variety of ministries (education, development, health, evangelism, and more) of our ecclesiastic partners in any of the three countries mentioned above. Each of us can speak to Presbyterian World Mission in general.

Different ways we can share about the mission of the church include full presentation with slides, Sunday School hour, preaching, moment for mission, weekend retreat, workshop, children’s sermon, presbytery meeting, mission committee meeting, etc. We can work in a variety of settings and with almost any age group, but for our own preparations it is helpful for us to know well in advance which format you’d like us to use. Last but not least, our home base in the U.S. at the Furlough Homes on the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky has already been arranged, but
we’re still looking for a reliable and affordable car to borrow, rent, or lease. If you have any leads on that please let us know. Ideally, we’ll find a car in California that we could drive out to Kentucky with our kids and then return it 6-12 months later.

We hope to hear from you soon so that we can start making plans to visit with you. Please e-mail us directly at jeff.boyd@pcusa.org (for Jeff) and christi.boyd@pcusa.org (for Christi). Our Skype accounts are jcmsnboyd (Jeff) and cjmsnboyd (Christi). Until June 20th, we can be reached by phone at +237 9931 2986 or 87. Currently we do not have a U.S. phone number to offer for our time in the U.S.